


Day in the Life

by Thimblerig



Series: The Lion and the Serpent [12]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, Handkerchiefs, Literary Geekery, Milady's complete lack of tender feelings, Non-Graphic Violence, day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7418572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Don't hurt her!” Aramis cried.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day in the Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaisyNinjaGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/gifts).



_Babes in the Wood_

“We're not keeping it,” said Madame severely.

“But she's so adorable,” said Aramis. “If I promise to feed her and look after her and...”

“No,” repeated Madame. “Never fall in love with the mark; never get attached to the contraband. Especially if it's human.” She glared askance at where the  kidnapped girl picked her way between rugged oak trees, scuffing up leaf litter, her dark blue skirts swishing in concert with the mouse-grey dress of the maid, Kitty, who trudged along with the stoic weariness of one who does not expect to sleep in a real bed that night. As if sensing the stare the little girl, Wilhemina, looked behind her, yellow braids falling around her caped shoulders. She stared back at Aramis and Madame and seemed to walk a little taller, trusting the maid’s hand to guide her.

“How do you do it?” Madame asked dryly. Her breath steamed, dragon’s breath, in the chill of the early spring evening. “All natural-born females, I suppose.”

“I'm gifted,” said Aramis modestly, “though that's not -”

He stilled, eyes drifting shut, almost sniffing the forest air. Carefully he lowered himself to the ground, driving the blade of a dagger into the earth and setting his ear to the pommel. “Company,” he breathed, rising, “coming from the north...”

 

_The Deer’s Call_

In the ravine Aramis tucked Kitty and the girl in a hollow formed in the earth and roofed with torn roots and fallen dirt. He tugged Kitty's dull cloak over them both, scattering leaves over, and put the handle of his second-best pistol in her cold hand, moving her finger around the steel trigger. “Only use this if you have to,” he said, smiling briefly, and tapped his chest, “and then point at the heart and shoot, no need to get fancy.”

She looked at it as if he had handed her a snake. _“Who's after us, what's happening, I can't use this...”_

He put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her forehead. “I'll make you a hippocras when this is over and bring you sugar plums and those pastries you like.” He tapped Wilhemina’s pointy nose. “Quiet as little mice now. And, sorry for this.”  He cut off one of her braids, and the other, with two quick slashes of his knife, then shoved more branches over the impromptu blind and climbed rapidly out, bundling more branches in his own cloak so it looked like he carried a wrapped-up child. And he ran.  

 

_Stetit Puella_

There was a poem Aramis liked, and quoted often enough that she had, quite against her wishes, memorised it in its entirety:

_Stetit puella_

_tunica rufa_

_si quis eam tetigit_

_tunica crepuit - Eia!_

 

_Stetit puella_

_tamquam rosula_

_facie splenduit_

_et os eius floruit - Eia!_

She had pieced together the Latin, eventually, filching a grammar because damned if she would admit that she did not understand something. Now, surrounded by ten men armed with long pikes, livery of dark blue under their cold-weather cloaks, it ran again through her mind: _A girl stood in a red dress, when you touched her, her dress rustled..._ She wore green, today, a pale shade that matched the leaf buds adorning the trees around them. Smiling meekly, she held out her arms, letting her cloak drape over them, showing that she carried no obvious weapons. “I'm afraid you have caught me out, gentlemen,” she said disarmingly, tossing her head with a coy tilt. “Whatever are we to do?”

Behind her one of the pikemen brushed at her cloak with the point of his weapon: it rustled like the feathers of a bird.

“Where's the girl?” demanded the leader.

“I ate her for breakfast.” She smiled again. A count of three and the man behind her was close enough - she turned into him and let the lead shot sewn into the hem of her cloak spin up, cracking the back of his head and letting him sag briefly against her as he collapsed. One down. She caught another with her slungshot and drew a poniard from her hair with her other hand, sharper than a thorn. She spun around the downed man, keeping him between her and the pikes, and blessed the young wood, with all of its narrow trees keeping the polearms baffled.

_A girl stood like a little rose-tree, her face shone and her mouth bloomed..._

She dyed her skirts _red._

 

_… Professionalism…?_

The evening was shading fast to darkness, now. Wolf and lamb time. If she and Aramis had managed but a half hour more before their pursuers caught up then they would have been playing a different game altogether. As it was… Well. No point fussing.

Arm twisted up behind her back, she staggered but did not fall to her knees. Four men still alive, but that was enough when they had hands on her - she smiled, blood in her teeth, at the leader. He tucked a lock of straggling hair behind her ear. She would kill him for that, soon enough.

“I say again,” he said calmly, “where is the little Duchess?”

“Just out of curiosity,” she heard from the trees, “are you those that want to kill the little one, or those who plan to marry Wilhemina off for the land rights?”

Of course Aramis had come back.

“Does it matter?” she called, and disdained to wince as her arm was twisted up behind her.

“I suppose not that much,” he responded thoughtfully.

“You sound like a marriage of state never happened before,” called her captor, oddly aggrieved.

“YOU DON'T SELL CHILDREN!” Aramis roared.

Silence, then the leader smiled, his face twisting oddly around a cheek scar. “I rather think I might buy one.”  

More silence. “Or I could carve a few pieces off your leman before we start to bargain. If you prefer. She killed a very good friend of mine - I know _I'd_ prefer that.”

“... You wouldn't...” they heard from the trees.

The leader traced his thumb along one of her cheekbones and smiled again. Oh, he was going to die _painfully._

“Wait!” With a faint cracking of twigs Aramis moved into view, cloaked in the twilight gloom. There was a bundle in his arms, child-sized, and one hand curled protectively around where the head rested on his shoulder. A yellow braid spilled out of the cloak and swung gently.

“Aramis,” she said wearily, “what do you think you're doing?”

“I -” he looked straight at her, anguished. “I can't -”  

The scarred leader smiled wider, almost kindly. “That’s it. Bring the child here now. Good boy.”

“She hit her head,” Aramis apologised. “We couldn't run anymore anyway. I'm sorry...”

“Get out of here!” she snapped. Her captor drew back his hand to hit her but hesitated. She spat blood at him anyway.

“Don't hurt her!” Aramis cried, though whom he meant was unclear. He laid the bundle down, very tenderly, then said, “Now let the lady go.” He backed off half a step and they did the exchanging-hostages dance.

“You miserable little fool!” she snarled at him as they ran. He waved his hands frantically. Then the bomb hidden in the pile of twigs and branches covered in the cloak exploded.

They  were far enough from the blast that it merely stirred her hair, but Aramis dropped, and stayed kneeling on the forest floor, hair wild and eyes blank. He moved his lips into a smile, barely visible in the darkness. “And you said I couldn't sell the bit.”

“Aramis.” She crouched in front of him and touched his temple gently. “Aramis, I need a handkerchief.”

His eyes focused on her face. “You're bleeding.” He shook himself and produced a cloth, and clean water, and fussed over her for several minutes. Then, holding out his arm, he said, “shall we?”

 

_All’s Well That Ends Well_

Down in the gully where Aramis had hidden the contraband he ducked, narrowly missing the shot from Kitty-the-Maid, who then threw herself into his arms, sobbing. “Shhhhhh, shh,” he soothed, smiling.

The little girl, Wilhemina, her newly shorn hair as fluffy as a duckling, erupted into movement. She ran to Madame and clung to her leg, bloody skirts and all. “Aramis,” she said, cautiously putting her hand on the girl’s head, “scrape this off for me, would you?

But he only laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Kitty-the-Maid is very much a Non Action Girl.
> 
> Slungshot - a weight on a rope, or a weight hidden in a cloak, or a weight hidden in a long hanging sleeve, used as a weapon.
> 
> “Sell the bit” - slang for “make a lie or act very convincing”


End file.
